The world of horseracing has been plunged into mourning today with the tragic news of the death of former jockey John Thomas McNamara, who was just 41 years of age.

McNamara, who made his name as one of the finest amateur jockeys in the history of national hunt racing, fractured two vertebrae in his neck after being thrown from his horse Galaxy Rock in the Fulke Walwyn Kim Muir Challenge Cup on March 14, 2013 at the Cheltenham festival and was paralysed from the neck down.

According to the Limerick Leader, the father-of-three is understood to have suffered complications on Friday night before being transferred to University Hospital Limerick.

He was discharged to spend his final days with his family.

He is survived by his wife Caroline, his two sons, Dylan and Harry, and his daughter Olivia.

McNamara had over 600 career wins and visited the winner's enclosure at the Cheltenham festival on four different occasions.

He won the National Hunt Chase twice, on board Rith Dubh in 2002 and he repeated the feat 10 years later on the Rebecca Curtis-trained Teaforthree.

He was also victorious on the Enda Bolger-trained Spot The Difference in the 2005 Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase, sporting the JP McManus silks that he carried to success on so many occasions.

He won the Foxhunters Chase at the festival for the same connections in 2007 on Drombeag.

Tributes to the much-loved jockey have been pouring in on social media:

European Tour chief executive Keith Pelley insists golf must embrace new formats and plans to have six-hole events on the professional circuit as early as next year.

The Canadian, who succeeded George O'Grady last year, has been keen to modernise the game and has already permitted players to wear shorts in pro-ams and introduced measures aimed at tackling slow play.

However, Pelley's announcement that six-hole sprint formats could be included on the European Tour schedule from 2017 is a significant leap.

"Golf and tennis has to be a little more open to letting the youth actually participate," Pelley said. "There's no question that is something we believe in as well.

"You look at some of the new formats that have been created – when you look at adventure golf, or the brand Top Golf, and there's one 15 minutes from where I live in Virginia Water. It's really geared towards millennials, so the way that people are participating in the game is completely different.

"Let's be honest – and scientific data proves this – attention spans are decreasing as opposed to increasing and it's completely different when the choice people have to consume content now is so different than it was 35-40 years ago.

"So you have to change, people's time is so precious that golf – I think every golf course being built needs to be six holes, six holes, six holes – so that people can go at the beginning before they go to work."

Pelley highlighted the success of Twenty20 cricket in boosting attendances as a reason for change.

"From our perspective, as the gatekeepers of the professional game, we are looking to create a format that would be six holes.

"That could be an hour, an hour-and-a-half content programme…which would be very entertaining," added Pelley, who said that if golf were invented today it would likely be a 12-hole rather than 18-hole sport.

"Yes there would be a shot clock, yes there would be music being played, and PA announcements, and players would be dressed a little differently, and maybe they would only play with five or seven clubs.

"Our leaderboard is always filled with a bunch of different flags and it would probably be a country competition, so you could probably see England playing Scotland in a six-hole matchplay with time clocks and music and so forth going on and it would be an aspirational goal to be even remotely as successful as Twenty20 cricket.

"If you're not prepared to change, if you're not prepared to be innovative, if you're not prepared to take chances, then I do believe that the sports that aren't will fall behind.

"We'd like to experiment…in 2017 and maybe roll it out in 2018. It's still in the infancy stages of being developed.

"The tradition, the integrity of the game, the 72-hole tournament will always be there in some form but if you catapult ahead 10 or 15 years the game of golf will be consumed completely differently and there will be different formats that will be successful as content entertainment makers."

Pelley also refused to rule out changing the name of the European Tour to reflect its' global nature in the future.

A strategic partnership with the Asian Tour was announced earlier this week and with just 19 of the 50 European Tour events held in 2016 being staged on European soil, Pelley is open to rebranding in the future.

He continued: "You can't play 47 weeks in Europe, hence the reason that we started to move all around the world and since then we've expanded and as early as this week we've announced a strategic alliance with the Asian Tour, so our position in Asia is going to grow: we've opened an office recently in Korea.

Chris Jordan made amends for running out in-form New Zealander Ross Taylor with a match-winning 45 off 21 balls as Sussex defeated Essex by 24 runs to secure only their second NatWest T20 Blast win in eight games.